


This is a journey and we call it home

by Etalice



Series: Drarropoly 2019 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A surprisingly low amount of angst for yours truly, Emotional labour, Feminism, Happy Ending, Loving Yourself First, M/M, Narcissa is always right, POV Second Person, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21683167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice
Summary: The first time Harry storms out to sulk on the streets of London, you sit on the floor, and you count your breaths, and you try very hard not to cry. It’s the middle of your first fight, and you’re so afraid it means it won’t work out. You’re so afraid that you’re too broken, in the aftermath of the war, too anxious and too clingy for the relationship to ever work.When Harry comes back, you sit him down, and you talk through all his issues with him. He apologises, and he opens up about how difficult it is for him, this post-war world in which he’s not needed so badly anymore. How he doesn’t know what to do with himself. You’re happy, that night. Satisfied it’s all going to work out. Proud that he made the first step out of his shell and into the world.Harry does not stop storming out.A timeless tale of love and emotional labour.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Drarropoly 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1563085
Comments: 29
Kudos: 123
Collections: Drarropoly 2.0 - A Drarry Game/Fest





	This is a journey and we call it home

**Author's Note:**

> _Harry or Draco surprises the other with a weekend retreat for their anniversary and plans on doing something a little bit different. Choose to explore either 1) emotional intimacy ~~-OR- 2) physical intimacy -~~ as the planner of the weekend opens up about their innermost hidden desires. _
> 
> I was lucky enough to have not one but two wonderful betas for this fic. My many thanks to [Andithiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andithiel) who wrangled my walls of texts into actual paragraphs and made my punctuation make sense and to [Rasborealis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasborealis) who stopped me from using the same three words over and over again. This fic fought me every inch of the way but for all the comments you left me? It was well worth it.

The first time Harry storms out to sulk on the streets of London, you sit on the floor, and you count your breaths, and you try very hard not to cry. It’s the middle of your first fight, and you’re so afraid it means it won’t work out. You’re so afraid that you’re too broken, in the aftermath of the war, too anxious and too clingy for the relationship to ever work.

When Harry comes back, you sit him down, and you talk through all his issues with him. He apologises, and he opens up about how difficult it is for him, this post-war world in which he’s not needed so badly anymore. How he doesn’t know what to do with himself. You’re happy, that night. Satisfied it’s all going to work out. Proud that he made the first step out of his shell and into the world.

Harry does not stop storming out.

* * *

After the fifth time, you bring the matter up with Temperance, the mind healer who’s been helping you since you broke down, the week after your trial, and couldn’t bear to step out of your room.

“It’s not your job, fixing him,” she says in her serious, professional voice.

He’s your boyfriend, you argue. He needs you. He didn’t get a loving family, growing up, he didn’t get to learn how to express his needs.

“Draco, you can’t make him happy if he doesn’t know how to be happy. It’s his own path to take, not yours. You need to establish boundaries if you want the relationship to be healthy.”

Temperance’s voice is soft and calm. 

You ignore her. 

It’ll get better, you tell yourself. Harry will stop sulking eventually when he understands that you love him unconditionally and that he only needs to ask for his needs to be met.

* * *

Two years into your relationship, he finally completes his training and starts working as an Auror. He hates it, you can tell. He storms around the flat every time a case doesn’t go his way, and every time his boss takes credit for one of his ideas. You talk him through all the times when the criminals got away, and all the times when his boss makes the wrong decisions, and the aftermath of one particularly catastrophic audit of the Auror department. It exhausts you, having to deal with his temper. There are days you feel your pulse racing when the clock strikes seven, because you know he’s more than half an hour late, and you’ll have to be patient and kind and drag all the hurt out of him.

You bring up the problem over and over with Temperance. She always says the same things. ( _ You need boundaries, Draco. _ and  _ He can’t expect you to act like a crutch for his own emotional immaturity _ .) She tells you that you’ve put in the work that lets you understand your feelings and cope with negative emotions. She tells you that he hasn’t. 

You don’t listen to her, but you’re not as certain as you once were that it’ll pass.

* * *

Three years into your relationship, you finally get a chance to enter a joint PhD program in Potioneering and Muggle chemistry. You spend your days in a frantic rush to complete all the mundane, yet impossibly time-consuming tasks your supervisor assigns to you and tutoring Muggle students on their weekly lab rotation. When you finally get a bit of time to yourself, you pore over medieval alchemy manuscripts and try to decipher whether the author meant to add sulphur, or sarplar, or something else entirely. Some of the manuscripts you’re working with, you suspect, were written by trolls, and when you finally make it home, you’re exhausted and frustrated.

And still, Harry sulks.

And still, on top of everything you’ve had to deal with during your day, you sit him down and talk him through his feelings.

It leaves you drained.

* * *

You bring up the problem with your friends, in a desperate attempt to make sense of it.

Millicent tells you it’s normal. “That’s just what men do,” she sighs and sips her tea. “I wish Greg would open up about things, but men just don’t work that way.” 

You point out that you’re a man, and you’ve been managing to talk about your emotions once a week with your mind healer just fine. 

“Well, yes, but you’re gay, Draco. It’s not the same.” 

Before you can point out that you have strong indications that Harry Potter, the person you’re both complaining about and sleeping with, is also gay, Millicent’s three-year-old daughter spills orange juice all over herself. You wonder if Greg also has to bring their daughter along when he sees his friends. You smile through your teeth as Millie explains to you that men are hapless creatures that can’t be expected to do anything right. It confuses you, but what can you say? She’s wiping orange juice off a screaming toddler, and she’s clearly exhausted. You can’t tell her that you think Greg isn’t doing his bit. You can’t tell her that you think he’s more than capable of looking after his daughter every once in a while, and not locking himself in the garage for a silent sulk every time life has the audacity of not going his way. You can’t tell her that you think she’s sacrificing herself in vain.

Pansy is adamant that it’s not normal. She drinks her way through her glass of wine as she tells you all the ways in which men are entirely useless. You don’t want to agree with her, you really don’t, because you think you really manage to be quite useful, but you have to admit you recognise Harry in the bleak picture she paints of masculinity. You think she may be onto something, but then, as she pours herself another glass, she starts ranting about her boyfriend, about the way he talks over her or belittles her in front of his friends. About the way he gets angry at everything and how he makes her afraid sometimes. And suddenly, you’re overwhelmed with the conviction it has nothing to do with him being a man and everything with him being an absolute prick. She doesn’t listen when you tell her she doesn’t deserve this. 

“Men are shit,” she says as she drains her glass, “but that’s just the way it is.” You stare at her. “Unless we suddenly start liking women, we’ll just have to put up with the bullshit,” she adds with a small, conspiratory smile. You don’t feel any less confused. 

You don’t understand why Harry doesn’t learn how to ask for what he needs. You don’t understand why he puts you through the ordeal of sitting him down and fishing the words out of him every single time. You don’t understand why he doesn’t see it’s exhausting you. But if Millie and Pansy insist it’s normal, you wonder, how could it not be? Perhaps it’s the way things are meant to be? Perhaps you’re just too demanding or too fragile for a proper relationship?

You swallow it all down. You smile at Harry when he sulks and storms, and you don’t tell him how much it drains you. (But when Temperance tells you that emotional labour needs to be negotiated, in your next session, you listen a little more.)

* * *

Four years, eleven months and twenty days into your relationship with Harry, the conference you were supposed to speak at suddenly gets cancelled. You suspect what really happened was that your supervisor got into a heated academic debate over the use of antimony in southwest Germany during the late 16th century, and that in consequence, he isn’t on speaking terms with any of his colleagues. (Again.) He doesn’t tell you that, but he’s in a bad mood all day, and the students in his introductory class wait for twenty minutes before he deigns to show up after his lunch break, so you just sort of deduce. You couldn’t care less.

That’s a lie.

You couldn’t care less about the practice of alchemy in the Black Forest, but you do care quite a lot that you’re suddenly free to spend your anniversary weekend with Harry. That evening, you Floo the travel agency on Diagon Alley and book a lovely, remote cottage in the Cornish countryside.

You don’t think about Harry’s temper at all, that day, because Harry’s cooked you dinner when you make it home, and he kisses you on the forehead and asks you about how the article you’re writing for  _ Potion Weekly _ is coming along and—he loves you. You know he does. And you love him too, and it’s not always painful, what you have with him. It’s not always exhausting. So maybe Pansy and Millie are right, after all, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe the good outweighs the bad, and that’s all that matters.

* * *

Harry is so happy when you surprise him. You’ve told him you had to attend a conference on your anniversary weekend, and you’ve promised to make it up to him, and you’ve begged Ron to invite him for a weekend of quidditch or drinking or whatever it is they do when they’re together. Only, instead of Ron waiting at the train station, it’s you, and you whisk him away to the beautiful countryside, and he holds you tight throughout the entire train ride.

The cottage is even more beautiful than you imagined it would be. It’s all white-painted wood and soft aquamarine fabrics. The rich light of late afternoon is flooding in through large bay windows, painting everything is gold and bronze, as you close the door behind you and fall into the cloud-white bed at the centre of the room kissing passionately.

You whisper his name into his bare skin as he undresses you, and you moan his name in ecstasy after that, and when you finally collapse onto each other, satiated and warm and so very much in love, you think to yourself that he might be The One for you.

* * *

It’s beautiful, life with Harry, sometimes. It really is. You love the way he looks at you with sparkle-green eyes in the soft light of morning, and you love the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he laughs. You love the way he smells like pinewood and musk, you love the way his sweaters feel wool-rough and thick under your fingers. You love the way he says your name when you drink the last swig of coffee in his mug, and when he snakes his cold hands under your shirt and onto your warm skin, and when you make him come.

It’s beautiful, life with Harry, sometimes.

But this—this is not one of those times.

* * *

There’s a bathtub outside the cottage.

You love the idea of it. The countryside is peaceful and quiet, and there’s no one else for miles around, but the idea of bathing outside is thrilling and decadent all the same.

You talk Harry into trying it out.

The sun is setting fire to the sky in rich hues of purple and gold, and the cooling air smells like hay and wildflowers. You could stay here forever, you think, never go back to your thesis and your overbearing supervisor. You could stay here forever, have a garden, maybe, or an orchard. You could grow your own food and never talk to anyone again, and you’d be happy.

Then, Harry joins you in the tub. You can tell he’s in a bad mood as soon as you set eyes on him, and suddenly, there’s a black cloud hanging over your head.

It’s not that he tells you. He doesn’t need to. Perhaps there’s something in his face, in his walk, in the way his body moves or breathes or exists next to you. Perhaps there’s something that oozes from his skin and seeps straight into yours. You can’t pinpoint how you know, but you do, and exhaustion weighs heavy on your shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” you ask when silence has stretched between the two of you for several minutes.

He doesn’t answer honestly, of course, because when has he ever? Just stares out into the wilderness like he could light a tree on fire with his eyes, and entirely ignores you.

“Harry, love,” you try again, “I can tell something’s not okay. Talk to me, please.”

Your voice is soft and calm, you’d know how to do this in your sleep. You’ve memorised all the lines, you know all the stage directions by heart. You’ve been playing the supporting role to the tortured main character for five years now, and you’re entirely sick of it. You’re entirely sick of never being in the spotlight, entirely sick of never getting to be the main character of your own life and never being afforded the luxury to be sad and irrational and petty.

So when Harry tells you that nothing’s wrong and keeps stubbornly staring into the distance, you snap.

* * *

You’re not proud of the way you yell at him. You’re not proud of the way you stand up from the tub and walk back to the cottage, naked and wet and entirely heartbroken. You’re not proud of the way you apparate back to your mother’s home and collapse crying on your childhood bed. When the house-elf brings you tea and informs you your mother is waiting for you in the drawing-room, it takes you a good forty minutes to stop sobbing and make it down the stairs. You’re not proud of that either.

“I don’t think Harry and I are working out,” you tell your mother before you’ve even properly stepped through the door.

It surprises you that this is the first thing that spills out of your mouth. Your thoughts have been full of a burning sense of injustice until now, of how angry you were that you were never afforded the luxury to break down, in the safety of knowing someone would say all the right words, and do all the right things, and look after you until you were okay again. Your heart has been so full of anger, but it must have flowed out with all the tears you cried, it must have left wet stains on your blanket, seeped into your pillow because you can’t find it again.

Your mother’s hug takes you by surprise. You feel small and vulnerable in her embrace, despite the fact you’re a good head taller than her, now. You sit down, the both of you, and you drop your head on her lap. She strokes your hair in silence for a while.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks in a soft whisper-voice.

You tell her everything. You tell her about how hard it was to climb out of the hole you dug for yourself after the war, and you tell her how you thought it would help, having Harry hold your hand and call you his. You tell her how much you love him and how his anger outbursts always make you feel like you’re not good enough, not right for him. How you try and try and try to anticipate his every need so he doesn’t get upset. How you pour all your energy into managing his moods. How you’re worried he’ll leave you if you don’t get it right, sometimes, when you’re lying in bed, and you can’t sleep, and your brain keeps dragging you down to the darkest places.

“It’s my fault too,” you add when you’re talked her through all the hurt that lives in your chest. “I’ve never told him how it made me feel that he didn’t communicate properly. I’ve never asked him to make an effort. I can’t expect him to know what I’m feeling if I don’t tell him.”

“Would you know, if you were in his place?” Your mother’s voice is calm and soft but you know her well enough to know there’s a blade, hard and sharp, hiding behind the words. You don’t answer.

“Because it seems to me,” she continues, “that it’s exactly what he’s got used to you doing. Guessing how he’s feeling without him having to say a single word. How is it different when it’s the other way around?”

“I’m just better at it,” you start weakly, but she’s right and you know it. You sigh. 

“I don’t know,” you say. “Everyone keeps telling me it’s normal. Everyone keeps telling me it’s to be expected. How do I know I’m not being too needy or too pushy? How can I know I even have the right to ask it of him?” 

“Darling, you’re lucky enough that you get to wonder what is normal. You’re lucky enough that you get to make demands of your partner and that you get to walk away if things don’t work out.”

You wonder if she’s talking about herself. You wonder if she ever ached for your father to listen to her or to talk to her. You know he wouldn’t have done it if she had asked. You know the only thing she could do when she was twenty-two and a newlywed was to be quiet and pretty and never ask for anything at all. The reality of it hits you like a brick. You’re feeling all kinds of emotional, and when she adds, “Don’t waste it” in a pain-soft voice, you lose it entirely.

“What if it’s me?” you ask her. “What if it’s me? What if I’m all wrong? What if I don’t understand enough? What if I’m not good enough for him, what if someone else could do it for him? What if I’m broken and flawed, and that’s the real problem? What if it breaks us up, me asking?”

She kisses your hair.

“And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? It’s that you’re too afraid to ask because you’re too afraid to be rejected.”

You start sobbing again.

“But that’s only half of it, isn’t it?” she adds all the same. “You’re afraid he won’t change, aren’t you? You’re afraid he’ll ignore you, you’re afraid he’ll let you down. You’re afraid he’s not as good a person or a lover as you want to believe he is, and you’re so afraid that he’ll disappoint you given half a chance that you’re willing to sacrifice your happiness at the altar of never learning the truth about him.”

You nod into the soft wool of her dress. The delicate fabric is crumpled and tear-stained, but she keeps rubbing small, soothing circles onto your back until you can breathe again.

“You deserve to be happy, my love,” she whispers into your hair, “you’ve lived through so much already, and we didn’t protect you as much as we should have, your father and I. You deserve someone who will take care of you. You deserve someone who will make you feel safe and loved.”

And this is when you know you need to move forward. After years of being paralysed by fear and denial, you need to move forward. It terrifies you.

* * *

You apparate back to your flat late that night. You half expect Harry to be there. You also half expect the flat to be empty with Harry’s things nowhere to be found and not so much as a break-up note. What you don’t expect is a vase of flowers on the coffee table and an old button you instantly suspect of being a portkey sitting on top of a hastily scrawled apology.

You take a deep breath. Better to know the truth, you remind yourself. Better to pull the knife out of the wound so it stands any chance of healing at all.

You wrap your fist around the button, and you feel the familiar pull behind your navel as the world around you fades into a blur of colour. You find yourself on the porch of a remote Cornish cottage, in front of a bubbling bathtub shaped like a bucket.

“You came,” Harry whispers behind you, his voice half joy and half disbelief. He takes a step towards you. “Can I take you in my arms? I really want to take you in my arms right now.”

You nod.

“I’m so sorry, Draco. I’m so, so sorry. I’m bad with words, I’m bad with emotions. I never knew how much it hurt you.”

You breathe in his scent. His strong arms hold you flush against him. You love him, you realise. You love this man more than life itself, and you’re willing to sacrifice this—because you know you need to love yourself too. Love yourself more. Love yourself first, perhaps.

“I know, Harry,” you reply softly, “and that’s exactly what hurts. Because I would have noticed if I did something to hurt you. Because I’ve been noticing the minute patterns in your mood shifts for years now, and I’ve been doing everything I can to predict your needs. And every time I fail? Every time something makes you angry and you sulk and storm and refuse to talk to me? It feels like I’m not good enough for you. It feels like I did something wrong.”

“No, love. No. No, no, no. It’s not that, oh it’s not that, it could never be that. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, Draco.” Harry’s voice breaks as he hugs you tighter still and kisses your temple. “You’ve got it all wrong, love, you want to know why I was upset, before? I was going to ask you to marry me. Ron told me you had this whole thing planned, and Hermione went with me to buy a ring for you, and I was going to ask you tonight. And then I noticed I forgot the ring at home, and I was furious at myself for ruining the moment. At myself, love, but not at you, never at you.”

Your heart constricts painfully in your chest. He was going to ask you to marry him. It’s all you ever wanted, to spend the rest of your life with him. It’s all you ever dreamed of. You want to tell him it doesn’t matter. You want to say you’re sorry about getting upset, and you understand, of course, you understand. You want to forget about it and wear his ring and believe you’ll be okay, but your mother’s words echo in your mind, so you don’t.

“That’s not really fair on me, is it? You made a mistake but instead of solving it, you sulked and waited for me to solve it for you. You waited for me to soothe you and make you feel better, and that’s really not alright because it wasn’t my mistake, and because you didn’t ask, and because—I just feel so drained, Harry. I just feel so tired and stressed and afraid all the time. I lived through the war too, you know? You weren’t the only one who broke down afterwards. I had to learn how to live again, how to talk and make sense of my feelings. It’s not something I was born with. And you need to learn it too. You can’t keep expecting me to do that work for you.”

He’s silent for a long time, but he still holds you tight, so you don’t give up hope entirely. Whatever comes out of this, you think, you’ve gone entirely too far to regret it. You’re scared out of your mind and desperate for him to talk to you. You’re also incredibly proud that you’ve gone and put yourself first, for the first time since the end of the war.

“What’s the name of your mind healer?” Harry finally asks, in a soft, quiet voice. “Do you think she could recommend someone for me to see?”

And you cry, again, for the fifth time today, because it’s a step forward, finally. It’s a step in the right direction, and you were so prepared to move on alone but he’s coming with you, that beautiful, broken man, that unbearably human man. You kiss him with tears on your cheeks, and you tell him you love him. 

When he tells you he’d do anything for you to be happy, you believe him.

* * *

Seven years into your relationship, you marry the man.

It’s a lovely, intimate ceremony in your family’s orchard in France. Everyone pretends your mother does not cry the whole way through, and Harry successfully talks Molly Weasley out of wearing the hideous fuschia dress with the ruffles on the bum that clashes so terribly with her hair.

You’re standing underneath an apple tree in full bloom, and you’re preparing to say your vows when Harry fishes into the sleeve of his dress robe and takes out several pieces of parchment.

“Draco,” he starts with a shaky voice and trembling hands, “I’ve been lucky enough to share my life with you for seven years, and I’ve been luckier still that, during that time, I haven’t managed to put you off entirely since you still agreed to marry me.” 

The audience laughs. 

Harry continues, “I haven’t been the best person I could be for longer than I care to admit. I haven’t always been the best at communication. Sometimes, instead of having a conversation, I’ve been known to close up entirely and sulk for weeks on end.”

You notice Ron and Hermione looking at each other and stifling a laugh. They are not entirely unacquainted with the phenomenon, it would seem, and the thought of it makes you want to laugh and cry all at once.

“I haven’t been the best boyfriend I could be, and I can’t promise I will always be the husband you deserve, but I can promise that I will try. And you deserve everything, Draco. You deserve a husband who takes care of you and who makes you feel happy and supported. You deserve a husband who will make you feel the way you make me feel, and I promise you that I will try as hard as I can to be that husband. And I know it’s not much, but it’s all we can ever promise anyone at all, to keep trying and trying until we do get it right. So I will try, and I will listen, and we will make it through all the obstacles life will inevitably put us through, together. Because, Draco, I love you more than life itself, and I hope I never give you any reason to doubt that.”

He looks at you with hope and adoration in his face, and you ugly cry your way through your own vows. You don’t think anyone in the entire audience minds, they’re all too busy dabbing at the corners of their own eyes. And when you finally get to kiss him, when you finally get to cut the cake and smile until your face hurts and hold his hand and cry again, you feel so happy you could burst.

And you know, all the while, you know it’ll work out because you’ll make it work, the both of you. You’ll make it work, and you’ll listen to each other, and you’ll talk.

And you’ll be happy.


End file.
